iPhone 5C is reportedly China Mobile-bound

All eyes are on Apple ahead of a special event scheduled for Tuesday morning at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. where the company is expected to unveil at least one, if not two, new iPhone models. And Apple is preparing to ship the still unannounced iPhone 5c to China's biggest mobile company, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The iPhone 5c's existence is all but confirmed - numerous photos of iPhone 5c components and iPhone 5cs in (and out) of boxes indicate that Apple has built a new iPhone model that uses a plastic or polycarbonate case that will be available in a variety of colors. The iPhone 5c will reportedly cost less than the other new iPhone 5 model, the iPhone 5s.

Chinese consumers are buying lots of smartphones, but Apple has been outpaced by Samsung and Chinese manufacturers, who are able to sell less expensive handsets in the country which use the Android operating system. Apple's also yet to have an iPhone sales deal in place with China Mobile, which has more than 60 percent marketshare in a country of almost 1.2 billion cell phone customers.

Update: Bloomberg corroborates the report, and indicates that the China Mobile deal will not be announced at the September 10th event. (Apple is scheduled to hold an event in China several hours later, however.)